No-Sweat Fashion Show Planning Meeting

There is another planning meeting this Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 4:30pm, 3rd floor of the UCC, by the tables in the back corner (with the windows). The meeting will only be a maximum one hour in length.

Make Poverty History - An Election Issue

Making poverty an issue in the London North Centre by-election

The Make Poverty History campaign invites you to attend a meeting to discuss how we can make poverty an issue in the London North Centre by-election.

The meeting will take place Thursday, Nov. 2 from 7:30 to 9:00 pm at the University of Western Ontario, University Community Centre, Room # 371 (on the 3rd floor).

Silent Protest

On Monday, November 6, from 12-2 p.m., UWO students will be engaging in a silent protest at the concrete beach (area in front of the UCC).

Participants are asked to wear black, and place duct tape or something similar across their mouths to visually show the USC's policy of gagging and censoring groups on campus. The aim of this protest is to draw attention to the actions taken by the University Student Council against freedom of speech on campus. Show your disapproval of the USC's policies, which have limited the views on campus to those deemed safe, and kept student organizations from achieving their full potential.

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL OXFAM EVENT. OXFAM SUPPORTS FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND WE ENCOURAGE OUR MEMBERS WITH CONCERNS TO ATTEND THIS PROTEST AS INDIVIDUAL STUDENTS TO SUPPORT FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUT WE ARE NOT AS A CLUB OFFICIALLY HOSTING THIS.

No Sweat: Get Involved

Those of you interested in modeling in Amnesty's Anti-Sweatshop fashion show (taking place November 6th), please email h_elash@hotmail.com. Models will likely need to attend a fitting on Sunday night of next week, as well as a full dress rehersal on Monday night, and of course the final showing on Tuesday afternoon.

For people who would like to help out in other ways (setup, decoration, planning, etc.) feel free to email Dave (dshellnutt@hotmail.com) and tell him exactly what you're interested in doing.

If you have any further questions or concerns you can always drop us a line at westernoxfam@gmail.com.

Oxfam Gets Noticed!

Every year, 30 million people die of starvation. On Monday, the Oxfam club at Western, along with other people on campus, engaged in a 24-hour fast to raise awareness about hunger and poverty.

"The aim was to show solidarity with those who go hungry in the world," said Heather Perquin, president of Oxfam Western. "It was also to create awareness of the event--to get people to notice and to get them to donate food items or money which would go to the University Students' Council food bank."

Participants wore coloured tags around their necks reading "World Food Day 2006" and "I am fasting to raise awareness of world hunger and food-related poverty." The tags included a statistic reading, "Every day, more than 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--ONE child every 5 seconds."

Western student and fast particiant Sarah McCullock said she noticed people looking at her in class, but thought the club's booth in the University Community Centre was more effective at getting attention.

She said the even was a good experience and helped her better appreciate her lifestyle.

"It helps us understand what these people are going through," she said. "At the university, we're all fortunate enough to be here through loans or parents, but hunger is global. It's here in Canada. It's good we're taking these food donations because people in our community need food too."

Malnutrition plays a role in at least half of the 10.9 million child deaths each year.

Article taken from today's Gazette.

School Of The Americas protest

The Annual School Of The Americas protest is approaching fast! The planning meeting is October 13th. Every year students and people from London and UWO travel together to protest the existence of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (previously called the School of the Americas), located at Fort Benning, Georgia.

www.soaw.org


IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN ATTENDING THIS YEAR'S PROTEST THEN PLEASE CONTACT - CHRIS STROUD cstroud@uwo.ca

United Students Against Sweatshops

USAS is a grassroots organization of over 200 university, college and high school groups organizing campaigns in solidarity with workers on our campuses, in our community and internationally.

Canadian Conference October 26-28th!!

www.studentsagainstsweatshops.org

For more infomormation conatct:
Amanda Wilson amanda@usasnet.org
Hayley Watson hayley@usasnet.org

Bike For AIDS

Thursday, October 12th, WUSC (World University Services Canada) presents Bike For AIDS on the Concrete Beach from 11am until 6pm.

Form a team and bike around campus for 6 hours. All proceeds go towards purchasing bicycles for AIDS workers in Africa. Every $200 raised = 1 bike for AIDS workers in Africa.

www.bikeforaids.ca

Points of Interest

Well this is just a random mess of points that I will hopefully clean up later:

1. Our first meeting! Good to see all you guys come out! For everyone who has issues with Mondays, I think we might start having a second-shift meeting on Thursday afternoons at the Spoke just so we can include everybody and get everybody involved. If you still can't make it we'll keep you updated via email/blog.
2. Million Faces Campaign / Control Arms - Come out to the Concrete Beach on October 10th (that's next Tuesday) in the afternoon and get your face added to the Million faces petitioning for greater arms control.
3. World Food Day - Monday October 16th
4. Buy Nothing Day - Friday November 24th

So yeah, stuff to get involved in. If you have any questions or would like to help out with any upcoming events drop us a line at westernoxfam@gmail.com. I promise I'll clean this up and add new stuff tomorrow.